The most popular authoring tools in the elearning industry are Articulate Storyline, and Adobe Captivate. One of these tools is a must in a content production shop. Other popular softwares are Lectora, and Camtasia. Camtasia is specifically used for video production.

The ones quoted above by William are desktop based. There is increasing demand and popularity for cloud based authoring tools. Some of the top ones which i have seen are 1. easygenerator, 2. Claro 3. lectora online 4. BrainShark , 5. Zebrazapps

Thanks everyone for your inputs. Based on our research over the last few weeks, Articulate is currently our pick for creating scorm compliant content. We are also interested in Camtasia for production of pure video content. Along with this, we are planning to evaluate a few online tools, like Gomo, and Claro over the upcoming week.

A good list of 2D low level IMI development tools. What about 3D content development? All too often developers shy away from 3D content development because they think it is too time consuming and difficult. Check out Modest3D @ www.modesttree.com Touting itself as the Next Generation of 3D development tools, Modest3D is a relatively new way to look at content development through an easy to use, rapid 3D development tool. Great if you are interested in taking your content to the next level.

Though there are various best authoring tools and each tool has its own identity to stand in the race of technology by integrating the components that are required for the learners so as to enhance the learning experience and retention.